


Someone Has To Take Care of You

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Domestic, F/M, Fallen Castiel, Season 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2466143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel keeps forgetting he's human now, but luckily, Meg is there to remind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Has To Take Care of You

He keeps forgetting.

It’s not really his fault. He just doesn’t feel any different: he is still the same awkward, watchful, kind angel he used to be. Only he’s not an angel now, not anymore since Metatron took his grace. And he keeps forgetting.

Luckily, she’s there to remind him.

“I just have a small headache,” Castiel says, rubbing his eyes.

“Yes, because you’ve been awake for about twenty hours,” Meg says, rolling her eyes. “You need to get some rest, Clarence.”

“I'm fine,” Castiel insists, leaning over the book, but the letters are all blurry and he rereads the same line without retaining any meaning three times before Meg puts her open hand on the page, blocking his view.

“Go the fuck to sleep,” she orders, in a slightly threatening tone. “Now.”

Castiel groans, but recognizes she’s right. He drags his feet to the bedroom the Winchesters assigned to him and sinks on the bed with a sigh. He wakes up late the next morning, and when he walks into the kitchen, Meg is there, flicking through the pages of a magazine. She has both her feet up on the table, and Castiel pictures Dean would fly into a fit of rage if he could see her.

"Sam left you pancakes in the oven,” Meg informs him.

“I’ll just have some coffee,” Castiel says, as he pours some in his cup.

Meg angrily closes the magazine and stands up. “Are you kidding me?” she asks. “Breakfast is the most important food of the day, and you’re having a decent one, or so help me…”

She keeps nagging him until Castiel accepts to down some pancakes with extra syrup.

The demon follows him around the empty bunker all day, while Castiel gathers all the information he can on the thing the Winchesters are hunting and calls them to inform them. She then declares Castiel has had enough of that and forces him to sit and watch a movie with her because mental exhaustion could potentially be damaging to his now human brain. She mockingly imitates the actors and Castiel giggles, so she doubles her efforts until he is bursting out with laughter. It’s not usual for him to do that, but Meg can bring it out of him.

“That’s my angel,” she comments when the movie is over. She stretches her arms and stands up. “Come on, let’s go downstairs. Dean said you need to practice your aiming.”

Castiel cringes. He’s been practicing for weeks without any results. “Since when do you care what Dean thinks I should do?” he asks.

“I don’t,” Meg clarifies. “I will kill you if you tell him, but he’s right. You can’t do one-on-one like you used to, so knowing your way around ranged weapons could come in handy.”

Castiel doesn’t really want to, but Meg doesn’t let him weasel out of it either. Fifteen minutes later, he’s at the shooting gallery, and his hand hurts because he’s still getting used to the recoil. Not one of his bullets ended anywhere near the center of the target.

“Hey, look at the bright side,” Meg says. “You might not have killed them but you’ve slowed them down.”

Castiel glances at her, skeptical and she raises her arms.

“Okay, it was pretty pathetic,” she admits. “But you’ll get better.”

Castiel sits down with his back against the wall, and she sits by his side, looking at him attentively. It reminds him a little of their days back in the psychiatric hospital, where she used to watch him like a hawk while he remained catatonic and talk to him through his screaming fits and panic attacks.

“I’m useless,” he sighs, expressing out loud what he thought since the first time he woke up human, fallen and abandoned on a field. Meg had come to him short after his encounter with Hael, and she hadn’t left him alone for even a second, encouraging him to keep walking, reminded him he needed to eat and that money was a very finite resource he needed to get back to the bunker. If it wasn’t for her, he would’ve given up much sooner.

“You’re not,” she says.

“If I wasn’t, then Sam and Dean would have taken me with them,” Castiel points out. “Without my grace, I’m more of a hindrance than a help.”

“That’s not true,” Meg replies. “You did all the digging in this case.”

“It took me hours to find the information they needed,” Castiel says, running his fingers through his hair.

“That’s 'cause you were all but snoring over the books,” Meg says. “If you have taken a break when I first told you to…”

“Why do you keep doing this?” Castiel asks, suddenly. “Why are you still here? Why do you even bother taking care of me?”

“Well, _someone_ has to,” Meg shrugs. “And since you’re obviously not willing to do it yourself…”

Castiel doesn’t answer, so she gently places a hand on his forearm.

“Hey,” she says. “You’ll get the hang of this whole being human thing. You just gotta take baby steps, alright?”

She says it with such confidence that Castiel can’t contradict her. He grabs her hand and squeezes it tight.

“Alright,” he says, placing a little peck on the palm of her hand. It’s unusual that she allows him to be this affectionate, but he’s not about to question his luck. “Thank you.”

“That’s enough now,” she says pulling her hand away and standing up. “You need to take a shower, and then we’ll have a light dinner.”

Castiel is about to say he isn’t hungry, but the growl of his stomach contradicts that idea. He smiles. He wouldn’t know what to do without her.

 

* * *

 

The Winchesters arrive late and tired after hours of driving, and they’re yawning while the walk into the library.

“Hey, buddy,” Dean greets him when he finds Castiel sitting in the couch, reading a book. “Great work with the… the… thing you told us to do,” he says, obviously too tired to actually articulate a coherent sentence.

“It was no trouble,” Castiel grins.

“You’ve been okay?” Sam asks. He knows Castiel is still a bit overwhelmed by his new situation. “Did you eat? Did you sleep?”

“Yes, I did all that, Sam,” Castiel says, rolling his eyes like a teenager whose mum just ordered him to do something really easy. “Meg reminded me to do it.”

“Meg,” Sam repeats, as Dean stops in his tracks and looks back at Castiel with a concerned expression. “Right, of course she did,” Sam says, with a smile. Castiel doesn’t realize it looks force.

The brothers don’t exchange a word until they’re out of the fallen angel’s earshot.

“Dude, how long are we going to endorse this?” Dean asks. “It’s getting creepy. We should just tell him…”

“We can’t tell him,” Sam interrupts him. “He’s doing a lot of progress. Remember that time he passed out ‘cause he forgot to eat for two days?”

“Yeah, but…” Dean protests, but Sam shakes his head.

“It’s his coping mechanism, Dean,” he says. “It’d be dangerous to just pop his bubble like that.”

They shut up when they hear a Castiel’s steps echoing down the hallway. He passes them by without even noticing them, gesticulating and chuckling to himself before disappearing inside his room and closing the door. Sam and Dean look at each other, knowing full well what the other is thinking.

“We should have just told him when she died,” Dean admits in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Agents of SHIELD's Fitz and his super-sad hallucinations of Simmons.


End file.
